‘New Europeans’ For the ‘New European
Economy’: Citizenship Discourses and the
Lisbon Agenda
Sandy Hager
Linköpings Universitet, Sweden
Master’s of International and European Relations Department of Management and Economics
sanha926@student.liu.se
Abstract
Combining insights from critical discourse analysis (CDA) and neo-Gramscian IPE theory, this paper puts forth a cultural political economy (CPE) perspective to analyse the discursive articulation of ‘European subjects’ in the context of the EU’s Lisbon Agenda modernisation strategy. It is suggested here that the transformation proposed in Lisbon to the new economic imaginary of the knowledge-based economy (KBE), depends on ‘new subjects’ and thus new discursive constructions of identities to reflect the new economic and social formations it
envisions. The citizenship discourses of two of the Lisbon Agenda’s main supporters, specifically European business lobbies (represented by the ERT and LCEC) and the EU Commission, are examined in order to explore the relationship between citizenship rights and responsibilities and the two main goals of the Agenda, namely economic competitiveness/growth and social
inclusion/social welfare protection modernisation. The argument is made that the discursive articulation of a ‘neoliberal communitarian’ variant of citizenship, especially evident in the discourses of the EU’s business lobbies and the EU Commission since the ‘shift’ to jobs and growth in early 2005, represents an attempt to further the commodification of the EU polity, and as a result, subordinate the more social goals of the Lisbon Agenda to the perceived imperatives of economic growth and competition. The Lisbon Agenda does not therefore mark a dramatic ‘turning point’ in favour of a more ‘social Europe’ as was speculated early on, but instead works to consolidate the dominance of ‘embedded neoliberalism’ as the socio-economic governance model for the EU. The paper ends with a discussion of the possible counter-hegemonic
movements challenging the orthodoxy of embedded neoliberalism and neoliberal communitarian conceptions of citizenship.
Keywords: European Citizenship, Lisbon Agenda, EU Transnational Business, European Commission, Critical Theory, Cultural Political Economy, Neo-Gramscian IPE, Discourse Analysis, Embedded Neo-liberalism, Neo-liberal Communitarianism
Acknowledgements
First and foremost I would like to thank my adviser, Peo Hansen, for his mentorship and
assistance through this past year. Peo has went above and beyond the call of duty in reading and commenting on countless different drafts of the thesis, making time to meet in person and by phone, and in giving excellent feedback and advice on a range of matters. Looking back on this past year of collaboration, I now consider him not only to be an academic inspiration, but also a good friend.
This paper has also benefited from the helpful comments, criticisms, suggestions and encouragements from the following people: Andreas Bieler, Hans-Jürgen Bieling, Carlos Frederico de Souza Coelho, Julian Germann, Geoffrey Gooch, Per Jansson, Fred Judson, Toros Korkmaz, Efe Peker, Magnus Ryner, Susanne Soederberg, and Bastiaan van Apeldoorn. Needless to say any mistakes or shortcomings in the finished product are entirely my own.
Finally, I would like to thank my family as well Carin and the Dahlbergs for their help and support throughout this writing process. In particular, I owe special thanks to my parents, Graham and Sue Hager for their support and for putting trust in my career plans.
Table of Contents
Part I - Outline of the Research Project ... 4
1) Introduction/Aims of Study... 4
2) Meta-Theoretical Considerations ... 8
3) Critique of EU Integration Theories... 12
4) Cultural Political Economy and European Integration Theory ... 16
5) Methods and Methodology... 24
Part II - Analysing the Citizenship Discourses of the Lisbon Agenda... 28
1) New Economic Imaginaries and the Subject: Preconstructing Citizenship Discourses ... 28
2) The Citizenship Discourses of the European Union’s Private Business Lobbies... 38
3) The Citizenship Discourses of the European Commission... 46
4) From Passive Revolution to Active Citizenship: The Commission’s mid-Lisbon Citizenship Discourses ... 53
Part III - The Contradictions of Neoliberal Communitarian Citizenship
and the Future of EU Socio-economic Governance... 59
1) Neoliberal Communitarian Citizenship and the Production of Hegemony: ‘Embedded Neoliberalism’ and EU socio-economic governance ... 59
2) On the contradictions between neoliberal communitarian citizenship and the Lisbon Agenda’s social goals ... 62
Part I - Outline of the Research Project
1) Introduction/Aims of Study
The European Union’s Lisbon Agenda is conceived in this study as representative of the most current ‘phase’ of the EU integration process. Indeed the Agenda, which was laid out in the spring of 2000 at the European Council meeting in the Portuguese capital, is no doubt significant in its calls for a “radical transformation of the European economy”, with the stated goal of making the EU the most “competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy in the world” by 2010.1 While broad and ambitious, the Lisbon Agenda is characterised by two main goals of
economic competitiveness and growth on the one hand, and improved social cohesion and social protection through a “modernised” European Social Model (ESM) on the other.2 Both goals are
underscored by a need for ‘more and better jobs’ within the Union.
In the words of Bob Jessop,3 this phase of EU integration and the vision of a European
knowledge-based economy that is evoked represents a “new economic imaginary”. Thought of in such terms, the Lisbon Agenda entails a “re-thinking of social, material, and spatio-temporal relations among economic and extra-economic activities, institutions and systems and their encompassing civil society”.4 While the new economic imaginary of the knowledge economy has
been invoked in many different nation-states, the Lisbon Agenda marks the first efforts at establishing this imaginary at the regional level. Thus as a new economic imaginary, the Lisbon Agenda is not simply an EU-based accumulation strategy, but a broader strategy with wider implications for the socio-economic governance of the EU as a whole.
Considering the potential significance of the Lisbon Agenda for the EU polity, we must investigate the broad, and as some would argue vague, nature of the new economic imaginary’s goals. After all, as has been demonstrated elsewhere, terms like ‘economic competitiveness’ and ‘social cohesion’ are highly contested with a variety of interpretations, especially amongst the EU member states.5 The Agenda as set up in the spring of 2000 should as such not be viewed as a
1 Lisbon European Council (2000) Presidency Conclusions, 23 and 24 March 2000.
2 It should be noted that although the Lisbon Agenda eventually added a third main goal of ‘environmental
sustainability’ at the Stockholm Council meeting of 2001, it will not be considered within the realm of this study.
3 Jessop, Bob (2004) ‘Critical Semiotic Analysis and Cultural Political Economy’, Critical Discourse
Studies. 1(2), p. 166
4 Jessop, Bob (2004), p. 166
5 Jessop, Bob (2002) The Future of the Capitalist State. London: Polity Press, pp. 121-2; van Apeldoorn,
Bastiaan (2003) ‘European unemployment and transnational capitalist class strategy’, in H. Overbeek (ed.), The Political Economy of European Employment: European Integration and the Transnationalization of
concrete, set-plan for the EU and its member states to implement, but as a dynamic, contingent and malleable strategy that will only find precise meaning once social actors begin to espouse their own interpretations of it.
Thus in the parlance of post-structuralist discourse theory, the Lisbon Agenda to some degree represents a floating signifier, “open to different ascriptions of meaning” and subject to a discursive struggle amongst social actors.6 One way in which to explore this discursive struggle is
through an analysis of the discourses of citizenship surrounding the Lisbon Agenda. After all, as Norman Fairclough7 explains, new economic imaginaries, and the new economic and social
formations they carry with them, depend on ‘new subjects’ and thus new discursive constructions of identities to reflect the new order in which they envision. If, as Chantal Mouffe8 suggests, “the
way we define citizenship is intimately linked to the kind of society and political community we want”, and if in turn, as Bryan Turner9 suggests, “whatever forces push modernization forward
also develop and expand citizenship”, then an examination of the citizenship discourses of the EU's modernisation strategy should give us a clearer indication of the underlying ‘social purpose’ and precise meaning of the Lisbon Agenda.
Citizenship will be considered at a most basic level in this study as the concept that defines the relationship between civil society and the state and which expresses the obligations and duties (rights and responsibilities) of civil society and state to each other.10 Defining
citizenship in such a way allows us to emphasise how the concept can take on an array of meanings depending on the way it is articulated within any new economic imaginary. Relating the concepts of economic competitiveness and social inclusion to the rights and responsibilities of citizenship is effective in helping us map the movements and potential contradictions of the Lisbon Agenda goals.
the (Un)Employment Question. London: Routledge, p. 114; Levitas, Ruth (2005) The Inclusive Society? Social Exclusion and New Labour. New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Hansen, Peo with Carl-Ulrik Schierup (2005) ‘Still a European Social Model? From a Vision of a ‘Social Europe’ to the EU Reality of Embedded Neoliberalism’, Themes. 26. Norrköping: Centre for Ethnic and Urban Studies, p. 17
6 Philips, Louise & Marianne Jørgensen (2002) Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method. London: Sage,
p. 63
7 Fairclough, Norman (2003) Analysing Discourse. Textual analysis for social research. London:
Routledge, p. 208
8 Mouffe, Chantal (1992) ‘Democratic Citizenship and the Political Community’, C. Mouffe (ed.),
Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community. London: Verso, p. 225
9 Turner, Bryan (1993), ‘Contemporary Problems in the Theory of Citizenship’, in B. Turner (ed.),
Citizenship and Social Theory. London: Sage, p. 12
Central Aims
The central aim of this study is to explore how the concept of European citizenship is articulated in the Lisbon Agenda discourses of the European Commission, as well as two of the main private business actors supportive of the Lisbon Agenda strategy, namely the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), and the Lisbon Council for European Competitiveness (LCEC). It is hoped that while citizenship cannot tell us everything about how the EU polity is governed, it can provide us with a relatively broad and multi-dimensional analytic concept for understanding socio-economic governance in the EU.
I use the term socio-economic governance as it is used by Bastiaan van Apeldoorn to denote a wider conception of governance that includes not only the public policies of EU institutions (which include a multi-tiered dimension involving national and local governments), but also the institutions and associated practices of civil society (among them, lobby groups and private forums). The notion of socio-economic governance also includes “the ideological and discursive underpinnings” that underlie polices and practices in the state-civil society complex of the EU.11 Thus the basic assumption made here is that these actors, which find themselves bound
together in a campaign to promote the 'modernisation' of the EU through the auspices of the Lisbon Agenda, play a crucial role in this socio-economic governance, and their agency plays a key role in determining whether or not the reforms suggested under Lisbon are realized in policies of the EU.
At a broad level then, the aims of this study will aid us in understanding how the European Union and certain elements of business interact in the integration [modernisation] process, and as well, in understanding how they formulate new identities within this new economic imaginary, and attempt to draw on public support in the process. The history of previous economic imaginaries in the EU have demonstrated, from the inception of the EC with the signing of the Treaty of Rome in the 1950s to the establishment of a European Monetary Union in the late 1990s, that there has been “no lack of political conflict between the goals of social welfare and promoting capital accumulation”. 12 At the level of the EU this conflict has
resulted in what Fritz Scharpf13 has described as an asymmetrical favouring of negative
11 I am grateful to Bastiaan for clarifying the concept in personal correspondence (12 April 2005) 12 Hansen, Peo with Carl-Ulrik Schierup (2005), p. 4
integration [abandoning controls over economic activity] over positive integration [market-correcting mechanisms]. This asymmetry, argues Otto Holman,14 when considered at the level of
the different European states, results in a situation of ‘asymmetrical governance’ whereby the (re)regulation of economic and monetary matters at the EU level leads to the deregulation of social welfare at the national level.
In relating this notion of asymmetry to EU citizenship we find that certain citizenship rights and responsibilities have been extended to the supranational level to compliment and enhance already existing negative integration (the free movement of people to compliment the free movement of goods, services and capital), yet at the same time the extension of social citizenship rights associated with positive integration at the supranational level has occurred only to facilitate labour mobility.15 Asymmetrical governance further exacerbates these matters as EU
deregulation and austerity measures put a further strain on the social rights of citizenship associated with the national welfare state, with little compensation provided at the supranational level.16 It goes without saying that the limited nature of EU citizenship has as a result
ineffectively addressed the very issues of EU-legitimacy it was set up to solve.17
Yet as some argue, the Lisbon Agenda marks some sort of turning point for EU-level social policy and the associated matter of social citizenship.18 According to Martin Rhodes,19 the
Lisbon Agenda represents a substantive effort by the EU to address the asymmetry of the integration process through a pragmatic“Third Way” plan that balances economic reform with a serious dedication to creating a ‘social Europe’. In the Commission’s own words, the EU is to become the best at both the firm and the daycare.20 With this comes a policy discourse of “a
14 Holman, Otto (2004) ‘Asymmetrical regulation and multidimensional governance in the European
Union’, Review of International Political Economy. 11(4), p. 716
15 Hansen, Peo (2000) ‘‘European Citizenship’, or Where Neoliberalism Meets Ethno-Culturalism:
Analysing the European Union’s citizenship discourse’, European Societies. 2(2)
16 Balibar, Étienne (2004) We the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship. Princeton:
Princeton UP; Castle-Kanerova, Mita and Bill Jordan (2001) ‘The Social Citizen?’, in R. Bellamy & A. Warleigh (eds.), Citizenship and Governance in the European Union. New York: Continuum
17 Scott-Smith, Giles (2003) ‘Cultural Policy and Citizenship in the European Union: An Answer to the
Legitimation Problem?’, in A. Cafruny & M. Ryner (eds.), A Ruined Fortress? Neoliberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe. Lanham MD, Rowman and Littlefield
18 Wincott, Daniel (2003) ‘Beyond Social Regulation? New instruments and/or a new agenda for social
policy at Lisbon’, Public Administration. 81(3). It should be stated here that one will find a lack of mention of the Lisbon Agenda’s open method of coordination (OMC) for social policy in this study. This is for two reasons: first, because of space constraints and the limited scope of this argument, and second, because there has been a large amount of research already conducted as regards the OMC, especially from the Foucauldian tradition.
19 Rhodes, Martin (2000), ‘Lisbon: Europe’s Maastricht for Welfare?’, ECSA Review, 13(30), pp. 2-7 20 Nilsson, Ylva (2002) ‘EU-ländernas mål med Lissabonstrategin: EU ska bli bäst på både företagende
och dagis [EU member states’ goal with the Lisbon Strategy: The EU will be best at both business and daycare]’, Europa-Posten. No. 3, p. 4; my translation from Swedish
unified account of equality and responsibility”, which Rhodes argues “bridges the traditional concerns of egalitarians and conservatives by embracing both the individual and collective rights and responsibilities of citizens”.21
The central argument underpinning this study, following a cultural political economy tradition, is that the social goals of the Lisbon Agenda (social inclusion, poverty reduction, modernisation of the ESM) will be ineffective if, as in past economic imaginaries, they are subordinated to the imperatives of economic growth and competition. More specifically,
following the argument of Étienne Balibar,22 this study suggests that one of the main obstacles (or
as Balibar would have it, ‘impossibilities’) preventing the realization of a democratic and legitimate European citizenship has been the lack of an “extension of social rights and […] possibilities for intervention in the regulation of the economy” at the European level. The discourses surrounding the Lisbon Agenda provide us with one avenue in which to explore whether or not this ‘impossibility’ noted by Balibar can be overcome. Before exploring these matters in more detail, an explanation of the theoretical framework under which the problem is undertaken will be offered.
2) Meta-Theoretical Considerations
In order to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework for this study, the theory section will be divided into three parts. First an explanation of the meta-theory guiding this study will be offered. Second, a critique of the mainstream theories of EU integration will proceed based on our established meta-theoretical premises. Third, an attempt will be made to develop what I deem to be a ‘cultural political economy’ perspective for the study of European
integration, formed through a critical engagement between neo-Gramscian international political economy (IPE) and critical discourse analysis (CDA).
The meta-theoretical level of this study follows a critical international relations (IR) theoretical framework. Critical IR theory arose in the 1980s as a response to the ‘structural dogmatisms’ of neorealism and structural Marxism.23 A wide range of theorists, including Robert
Cox, Andrew Linklater, Richard Ashley, and Mark Neufeld, began to question the knowledge claims and ontological focuses of the more dominant theories of IR. While the relationship between critical IR theory and the critical social theory associated with the Frankfurt School is
21 Rhodes, Martin (2000), pp. 2-7 22 Balibar, Étienne (2004), pp. 162-3
23 Devetak, Richard (2001) ‘Critical Theory’, in S. Burchill (ed.), Theories of international relations.
less than clear,24 the work of Robert Cox follows the classical work of the school’s Max
Horkheimer in distinguishing critical theory from problem-solving theory, or as Horkheimer called it, traditional theory.25 Following Cox’s now famous dictum, “theory is always for
someone and for some purpose”,26 we can differentiate between the epistemological and
ontological claims made by problem-solving and critical theorists.
Problem-solving theory, according to Cox, “takes the world as it finds it, with the
prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions into which they are organized, as the given framework for action”.27 The general purpose of problem-solving theory is to work within
the established status quo to correct disfunctions and problems in relationships and institutions in order that they run more effectively.28 Critical IR theory, on the other hand, “does not take
institutions and social and power relations for granted but calls them into question by concerning itself with their origins and how and whether they might be in the process of changing”.29 Thus
the social purpose of critical IR theory is to offer a historical analysis that questions the ‘common sense’ continuity of realist assumptions in the hopes of offering a guide for alternative
possibilities to the dominant world order.30
In terms of epistemology, problem-solving theory operates, following the natural sciences, under a Cartesian dualism that assumes that thought and being31 and the subject and
object of inquiry can be separated in order to analyse ‘objective’ behaviour.32 Hence in operating
under a positivist epistemology, problem-solving theories argue that theory in general must be ‘value free’; that theorists must study the world ‘out there’ obtaining an ‘objective knowledge’
24 Morton, Adam David (2003) ‘Social Forces in the Struggle over Hegemony: Neo-Gramscian
Perspectives in International Political Economy, Rethinking Marxism. 15(2), pp. 153-4
25 Cox, Robert W. (1986), ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations
Theory’, in R. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics. New York: Columbia UP; Horkheimer, Max (1972) Critical Theory. New York: Herder and Herder; Linklater Andrew (1990) Beyond Realism and Marxism: Critical Theory and International Relations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 27-31
26 Cox, Robert W. (1986), p. 207 27 Cox, Robert W. (1986), p. 208
28 Cox,Robert W (1986), p. 208; Cox, Robert W. (1995) ‘Critical Political Economy’, in B. Hettne (ed.),
International Political Economy. Understanding Global Disorder. London: Zed Books, p. 32
29 Cox, Robert W. (1986), p. 208
30 Gill, Stephen (1997) ‘Transformation and innovation in the study of world order‘, in S. Gill (ed.),
Innovation and transformation in international studies. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 5-6; Devetak, Richard (2001), p. 161
31 Horkheimer, Max (1972), p. 231
32 Cafruny, Alan W. & Magnus Ryner (2003) ‘Introduction: The Study of European Integration in the
Neoliberal Era’, in A. Cafruny & M. Ryner (eds.), A Ruined Fortress? Neoliberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe. Lanham MD, Rowman and Littlefield, p. 2; Gill, Stephen (1993a)
‘Epistemology, Ontology and the ‘Italian School’’, in S. Gill (ed.), Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, p. 21
whilst abandoning any bias that may distort the scientific observation.33 Social scientific enquiry
is therefore modeled after the methodological frameworks developed in the natural sciences.34
Problem-solving theory is empiricist to the extent that it prioritizes measurement and observation, isolating variables to test ‘falsifiable hypotheses’ allowing the theorist to gather concrete,
objective data.35
Stemming from this positivistic epistemology is a positivistic ontology based on ahistorical, individualistic and behaviouralistic assumptions.36 Consequently problem-solving
theories take the position that human nature, history and reality are relatively fixed concepts that exist a priori to our collective experiences of them.37 When applied to the level of international
relations, problem-solving theories operate within an anarchy problématique38 that leads to ceteris paribus assumptions about human nature39. As an example, realist theorists argue that the
anarchic, self-help environment of international politics creates a struggle for power and security among nation states.40 States are conceived as individualist actors within the anarchic structure,
and the domestic character of states is unimportant in the international realm because all states, acting within the international environment, rationally seek to guarantee their own security in the absence of a dominating international authority.41 This structural nature inherent in international
politics runs through history and is taken to be the natural order of things.
Critical theorists, in opposition to problem-solving theorists, reject the notion that social-scientific inquiry can imitate the natural sciences in forming value-free analyses. For critical theorists, an attempt must be made to overcome the Cartesian dualism of problem-solving theory through the employment of a hermeneutic epistemology, and the recognition that knowledge is always embedded in social and political life, and as a result political itself.42 Critical theorists
argue that even a theory that claims to be value-free is latently normative and “value-bound” to the extent that it “implicitly accepts the prevailing order as its own framework”.43 With this in
mind, critical theorists pose that the purpose of knowledge, following the classical insights of
33 Devetak, Richard (2001), p. 157 34 Linklater, Andrew (1990), p. 9
35 Ryner, Magnus (2002) Capitalist Restructuring, Globalisation and the Third Way. London: Routledge, p.
195
36 Cafruny Alan W. & Magnus Ryner (2003), p. 2
37 Gill, Stephen (1993a), pp. 22, 27; Cox, Robert W. (1986), p. 209
38 Ashley, Richard (1988) ‘Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy Problématique’,
Millennium. 17, pp. 227-62; cited in Gill, Stephen (1993a), p. 30
39 Cox, Robert W. (1986), p. 208 40 Linklater, Andrew (1990), p. 8 41 Linklater, Andrew (1990), p. 12 42 Devetak, Richard (2001), pp. 157-9 43 Cox, Robert W. (1986), p. 209
Karl Marx44 in the Eleven Theses on Feuerbach, should be used not only to understand the world,
but also to change it.
Although not taking the prevailing world order as 'given', critical IR theory must be careful not to ignore the 'real world' it is presented with,45 and must instead offer possibilities for
change within the prevailing order.46 This is achieved through immanent critique for the purposes
of identifying “social power relations that are preventing humans from reaching their aspiration of self-expression and adequately achieving their needs”.47 Critical IR theorists employ an
“intellectual conceptual ‘mapping’ to historically examine human social relations and their contradictions and movements”.48
In ontological terms, the alternative ontology of critical theory contrasts with that of problem-solving to provide a more dynamic, reflexive and historical framework designed to offer ethical, theoretical, and practical dimensions for the construction of an alternative world order.49
The critical perspective employed by Stephen Gill50 offers three assumptions that nicely frame the
ontology of critical IR theory in general:
1) the recognition that social reality is transient, and because history is ever-changing, is
conditional;
2) the conditionality of ontology means that no single ontology can adequately explain
social reality over widely differing periods, although for explanatory purposes, comparisons of these periods can be made;
3) in any historical situation, social action is constrained by structures that are not fixed,
but appear to be of necessity. These perceived structures of necessity are transcended through “consciousness and political will” or by “natural or quasi-natural forces such as ecological degradation”; but even these natural forces “entail a human response to their repercussions”.
More specifically, in taking a historicist perspective, critical theorists involve themselves
44 Marx, Karl (1994) ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, in L. H. Simon (ed.), Karl Marx: Selected Writings.
Indianapolis: Hackett, p. 101
45 Devetak, Richard (2001), p. 161 46 Gill, Stephen (1997), p. 15
47 van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan, Overbeek, Henk, & Magnus Ryner (2003) ‘Theories of European Integration.
A Critique’, in M. Ryner and A. Cafruny (eds.), A Ruined Fortress? Neoliberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, p. 34
48 Ibid, p. 35
49 Gill, Stephen (1993a), p. 22
50 Gill, Stephen (2000) ‘Knowledge, Politics, and Neo-Liberal Political Economy’, in R. Stubbs and G.
in examining how historical structures come into being and how they are transformed through human agency. In this way, critical IR theory is inspired by the French historian Fernand
Braudel, who holds that any historicist perspective must not only involve itself in the examination of certain short term historical events [l’histoire événementielle], but must also consider how these events are conditioned by historical structures built up over a long time span [longue durée].51 History is viewed as moving through a “dialectic of duration” under which structures are
transformed through a dialectic interplay between the immediacy of l’histoire événmentielle and the long-term (seemingly permanent) longue durée.52 In order to then adequately address the
structure and agency debate, critical IR theory departs from the reductionism of purely structuralist (focusing on structures) and intentionalist (focusing on agency) positions in suggesting that neither structure nor agency should be considered as ontologically prior to the other.53 Instead, critical IR advocates “a historically grounded conception of the dialectic totality
of structure and agency”.54
Following Robert Cox, historical structures can therefore be defined as “persistent social practices, made by collective human activity and transformed through collective human
activity”.55 This view of structure and agency is analytically useful in explaining the role of ideas
(agency) in social practice, yet at the same time recognizing how they are shaped by embedded structures. Although structures are not considered by critical IR theorists to have physical existence, they do produce “real, concrete effects”56 that provide a framework for action for
individuals and groups.57
3) Critique of EU Integration Theories
With these meta-theoretical premises established, we are now in a position to critique the more dominant, problem solving approaches to EU integration, namely neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism. The contention made here in this section rests on normative concerns that
51 Braudel, Fernand (1982) On History. Trans. Sarah Matthews. Chicago: Chicago UP, p. 27. 52 Gill, Stephen (1997), p. 5
53 van Apeldoorn, Bastian (2002) Transnational Capitalism and the Struggle over European Integration.
London: Routledge, p. 15; Hay, Colin (1995) ‘Structure and Agency’, in D. Marsh and Gerry Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave
54 Holman, Otto, Marchand, Marianne & Henk Overbeek (1998) ‘Series editors’ preface’, in K. van der Pijl
(author), Transnational Classes and International Relations. London: Routledge, p. x; Gill, Stephen (2003) ‘A Neo-Gramscian Approach to European Integration’, in M. Ryner and A. Cafruny (eds.), A Ruined Fortress? Neoliberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, p. 48
55 Cox, Robert W. (1987) Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History.
New York: Columbia UP, p. 4
56 Devetak, Richard (2001), p. 167 57 Cox, Robert W. (1995), p. 33
because the debate between neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism ultimately focuses on “whether EU integration is controlled by nation-states or is driven by a functionalist logic leading to supranationalism”, both theories tend to focus on the ‘form’ at the expense of the ‘content’ of EU integration, and as a result abstract the EU polity away from its social purpose and social base.58 This leads to a common, and rather narrow problématique whereby “power and special
interests are strictly contained in the discrete realm of (inter)state affairs”, and questions of democracy and legitimacy are of secondary importance.59 Both thus operate within what was
mentioned above as Richard Ashley’s“anarchy problématique”.
Neofunctionalism
In general we can say that neofunctionalist theory conceives the process of EU integration to be “gradual and cumulative”,60 or as some critics argue “automatic and
uni-directional”61. Central to neofunctionalism’s understanding of integration is the ‘logic of
spillover’: in essence, this suggests that politics follows after economics, as cooperation in matters of ‘low-politics’ creates the need for supranational institutions to oversee inter-state economic arrangements.62 This in turn eventually leads to political cooperation in matters of ‘high
politics’, and a loyalty transfer takes place away from the traditional nation state towards a supranational authority, as it is increasingly viewed as the more important focal point for social groups to apply their pluralist lobbying and input to the now more meaningful supranational arena.63
Intergovernmentalism
Intergovernmentalism, closely related to neorealist IR theory, marked a highly critical response to neofunctionalism, seeking to recapture a state-centric paradigm for the explanation of EU integration. This meant adopting the neorealist assumptions that states, as the only significant
58 Bieler, Andreas (2003) ’What Future Union? The Struggle for a Social Europe’, Queen’s Papers on
Europeanization. 1, p. 3, Available at: http://ideas.repec.org/p/erp/queens/p0036.html
59 van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan, Overbeek, Henk & Magnus Ryner (2003), p. 19
60 Walters, William (2004) ‘The political rationality of European integration’, in W. Larner & W. Walters
(eds.), Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces. London: Routledge, p. 158
61 Rosamond, Ben (2000) Theories of European Integration. New York: Palgrave, p. 62 62 Ibid, p. 60
actors, interact in rational self-interest within an anarchical global environment.64 In particular,
intergovernmentalism cast a critical eye on the logic of spillover “and the implication of automaticity it conveyed”65 by arguing that areas of ‘vital national interest’ in the realm of high
politics were essentially out of bounds for integration.66 Meanwhile areas of ‘low politics’,
although indeed subject to integrative tendencies, were cast in terms of bargaining and
convergence in state-preference formation, whereby cooperation in areas of economics (and the creation of supranational institutions that it implies) actually reinforces national state sovereignty.
Critique
While the debate between these two theories has formed the reference point for much theoretical discussion regarding EU integration, both have also been subject to critique by theorists wishing to go beyond empirical argumentation about the precise form of the integration process to analyse the ‘social purpose’ of EU integration. While the pluralism of
neofunctionalism seems to suggest a pertinent role for transnational societal actors, Bastiaan van Apeldoorn et al argue that these actors are not viewed as playing an autonomous role, but rather “are instrumental to the self-expansive process of spillover, and hence to the achievement of […] a European supranational state”.67 Furthermore, these authors make the case that pluralism, as
defined by neofunctionalism, makes no effort to conceptualise the unequal social power relations inherent in society, nor an understanding of how these groups succeed (or fail) in influencing the integration process.68 It is thus a “sociologically thin” conceptualisation of transnational civil
society actors as rational economic agents caught up in the expansionary logic of integration.69
Intergovernmentalism, for its part, calls for the ontological primacy of rational nation-states in the EU integration process, and as a result, neglects altogether the role of civil society in influencing EU integration. Stanley Hoffmann, one of the key early theorists within
intergovernmentalism, makes this point clear in suggesting that the process of integration “has to wait until the separate states decide that their peoples are close enough to justify the setting up of
64 Rosamond, Ben (2000), p. 131 65 Ibid
66 Hoffmann, Stanley (1964) ‘De Gaulle, Europe, and the Atlantic Alliance’, International Organization.
18(1). p. 5
67 van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan, Overbeek, Henk & Magnus Ryner (2003), pp.21-22 68 Ibid
69 van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan (Forthcoming 2005) ‘Transnational Business: Power Structures in Europe’s
Political Economy, in W. Kaiser & P. Starie (eds.), Transnational European Union: Towards a Political Space. London: Routledge
a European state”.70 This suggests that member states, acting as ‘gatekeepers’ guarding national
sovereignty in the process of EU integration, act in a rational way to limit cooperation to a level satisfactory to their domestic populations. This view proves problematic as state interest is construed as a unitary matter, thereby neglecting the possibility of domestic social struggle over the integration process, and at the same time ignoring fundamental issues of domestic legitimacy that arise in relation to EU-level policy convergence.71
New Integration Approaches: Beyond the Impasse?
In recent years there has been exciting theoretical innovativeness in EU integration studies that has attempted to move us past the impasse between neofunctionalism and
intergovernmentalism. For the most part, these attempts have manifested in two ways: the first endeavours to find a more sophisticated ‘middle-ground’ mode of analysis between the
rationalisms of intergovernmentalism and supranationalism, and the second, which seeks to move outside this dominant framework in offering constructivist alternative modes of explanation.72
The ‘liberal intergovernmentalism’ work of Andrew Moravcsik73 encapsulates one important
example of the former, while the latter has been formulated by social constructivist approaches to EU integration,74 and also the more critical ‘small c’ constructivism75 of neo-Gramscian IPE
theory.76 Whatever the case, it is evident that the field of EU-studies has in recent years started to
become more receptive to theoretical developments that have been at play in other fields since the
70 Hoffman, Stanley (1966) ‘Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation State and the Case of Western
Europe’, Daedalus. 95(3); cited in Bieler, Andreas & Adam David Morton (2001) ‘Introduction: Neo-Gramscian Perspectives in International Political Economy and the Relevance to European Integration’, in A. Bieler & A.D. Morton (eds.), Social Forces in the Making of the New Europe: The Restructuring of European Social Relations in the Global Political Economy. New York: Palgrave, p. 15
71 Andreas Bieler has demonstrated how Swedish and Austrian neutrality were undermined by EU
membership, and this formed a key issue amongst different forces at the domestic level. The eventual accession of these two nations in 1995 also goes against intergovernmentalist assertions about political integration in politically sensitive areas. See Bieler, Andreas (2000) Globalisation and Enlargement of the European Union: Austrian and Swedish Social Forces in the Struggle Over Membership. London: Routledge
72 Bieling, Hans-Jürgen (2004) ‘Europäische Integration Determinanten und Handlungsmöglichkeiten’, in
J. Beehorst, A. Demirovic & M. Guggemos (eds.), Kritische Theorie im gesellschftlichen Strukturwandel. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, p. 130
73 Moravcsik, Andrew (1998) The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power From Messina to
Maastricht. Ithaca: Cornell UP
74 See for example: T. Christiansen, K.E. Jørgensen & A. Wiener (eds.) (2001) The Social Construction of
Europe. London: Sage
75 Devetak, Richard (2001), p. 167
76 See for example: A. Bieler & A.D. Morton (eds.) (2001); H. Bieling & J. Steinhilber (eds.) (2000); A.
1980s.77
4) Cultural Political Economy and European Integration Theory
This section will propose a ‘multidisciplinary’ approach to EU integration, combining elements of neo-Gramscian IPE78 theory with critical discourse analysis (CDA). In order to
follow our meta-theoretical premises, while at the same time avoiding eclecticism, we will outline the premises of these theories, and remain sensitive to critiques that have arisen towards them. The combination of insights from both of these strains of thought produces a ‘cultural political economy’ (CPE) perspective to the study of EU integration.
Neo-Gramscian IPE was pioneered by Robert Cox in the early 1980s, and is influenced by Gramsci’s analysis of capitalism in the 1920s and 30s, but also by a range of other theorists, including Fernand Braudel, Karl Polanyi, and Karl Marx. Stating the theoretical premises and offering a critique of neo-Gramscian IPE theory is difficult considering that there is no single reading of Gramci's work, and therefore no single neo-Gramscian IPE perspective.79 We can
however assert that any neo-Gramscian IPE perspective concerns itself with the study of historical structures, or “persistent social practices, made by collective human activity and transformed through collective human activity”,80 by giving equal weight to the analysis of three
categories of forces (ideas, material capabilities, and institutions) that interact within three interrelated spheres of activity (social relations of production, forms of state, and world order).
While neo-Gramscian IPE has been applauded for offering rich historical analyses of ‘world orders’, and for broadening the study of IPE beyond the traditional separation of politics from economics,81 the theoretical framework(s) have not gone uncriticised. The works of Bob
Jessop, Ngai-Ling Sum, and Marieke de Goede in particular have offered insightful, sympathetic critiques of neo-Gramscian IPE. In short, these three authors82 still see three tendencies that point
77 Alan Cafruny & M. Ryner (2003), p. 1
78 While most problem-solving approaches will define the discipline of IPE as the study of the politics of
economic decision making, the critical perspective employed here follows Robert Cox in defining IPE as the study of the “historically constituted frameworks or structures within which political and economic activity takes place” (Cox 1995, p. 32)
79 Gill, Stephen (1993b) ‘Gramsci and Global Politics: Towards a Post-Hegemonic Research Agenda’, in S.
Gill (ed.), Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, p. 2
80 Cox, Robert W. (1987), p. 4
81 de Goede, Marieke (2003) ‘Beyond economism in international political economy’, Review of
International Studies, 29, p. 80
82 The following list is an amalgam of the three authors criticisms as found in Sum, Ngai-Ling (2004),
‘From ‘Integral State’ to ‘Integral World Economic Order’: Towards a Neo-Gramscian Cultural
International Political Economy’, Cultural Political Economy Working Paper Series. Lancaster: Institute for Academic Studies at Lancaster University. Available at: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/ias/polecon/;
toward a remnant of ‘economism’ in neo-Gramscian IPE; these tendencies include: 1) Class-reductionism: ‘over-privileging class over non-class identities and
interests in the analysis of power and institutions’; viewing class identity within the realm of the objective forces of production
2) Neglecting ideas: privileging material capabilities and institutional power over
ideas; treating ideas as stable and fixed in ‘ideational terms’ while neglecting their ‘practical and discursive nature’
3) Neglecting civil society: focusing on political society at the expense of civil
society; in turn, neglecting the role that ‘private’ discourses play in governance In order to address these criticisms, this study follows the above authors in suggesting that neo-Gramscian IPE can benefit from an engagement with the path-breaking advances that have been made within the field of discourse theory and analysis. Jessop and Sum have made a particularly convincing case for a ‘multidisciplinary’ perspective employing the insights of neo-Gramscian IPE with critical discourse analysis.
Critical discourse analysis (CDA), most commonly associated with the work of Norman Fairclough, goes especially far in addressing our concerns since it is first multidisciplinary in nature, and is second careful to assert that discourse is a social practice in a dialectical relationship with other (material) aspects of social life; CDA therefore denies, like
neo-Gramscian IPE, that everything in social life is reducible to language.83 Discourse, according to
Fairclough, refers to language in a general sense,84 and in order to explore its relation to
materiality, he examines not only texts and the discursive practices associated with language production, but also with “the larger social context that bears upon the text and discursive practices”.85 Critical discourse analysis therefore argues that discourse, in order to be a
meaningful analytical concept within the social sciences, must be linked to the idea of power,86
and thus to the agency of social actors that employ discourses ideologically87 while acting within
Jessop, Bob & Ngai-Ling Sum (2001) ‘Pre-disciplinary and Post-disciplinary Perspectives’, New Political Economy. 6(1), pp. 94-5; de Goede, Marieke (2003), pp. 89-90
83 Fairclough, Norman (2003), p. 2 84 Ibid (2003), p. 214
85 Sum, Ngai-Sum (2004), p. 5
86 Weiss, Gilbert, and Ruth Wodak (2003), “Introduction: Theory, Interdisciplinarity and Critical Discourse
Analysis”, in G. Weiss and R. Wodak (eds.), Critical Discourse Analysis. Theory and Interdisciplinarity. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. p. 12
87 Philips, Louise & Marianne Jøregensen (2002) Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method. London: Sage,
a historical structure. This ontological premise makes critical discourse analysis inherently multidisciplinary in its insistence that discourse analysis be combined with other elements of social theory.88
Like neo-Gramscian IPE, critical discourse theory has been subject to various
criticisms. According to Jacob Torfing,89 CDA is limited to the extent that it is unclear as to the
relationship between discursive and non-discursive elements.90 Furthermore, as Philips and
Jørgensen explain, it is left unanswered how one demonstrates empirically a dialectical
relationship between different social elements, and in addition, how to demarcate between these two corresponding elements, where and how the discursive and non-discursive influence and change each other.91 To take the economy as an example, it is problematic to determine whether
the ‘economic’ aspect of social life is non-discursive in the sense of running on its own logic, or whether the economy is in fact a discursive construction formed through the intersubjectivities of human meaning-making.92
By formulating our alternative perspective on European integration, and relating it to our subject matter, an attempt will be made to address the criticisms associated with neo-Gramscian IPE theory and CDA. As advocated by Bob Jessop and Ngai-Ling Sum, a cultural political economy approach, combining the insights of neo-Gramscian IPE and CDA, will be offered to the study of European integration within the specific realm of this study’s subject matter. Our alternative problématique, as stated in the introduction, is to understand and explain how discourses on citizenship are indicative of the broader ‘social purpose’ of the new economic imaginary of the Lisbon Agenda; and second, how these discourses on citizenship, as a key aspect of legitimation, are articulated by both private and public actors supportive of the new economic imaginary to secure the support of other elements of civil and political society. We must therefore develop a theoretical framework that reflects this subject matter by justifying theoretically how
suggests manipulation.
88 Graham, Phil (2003) ‘Critical Discourse Analysis and Evaluative Meaning; Interdisciplinarity as a
Critical Turn’, in G. Weiss and R. Wodak (eds.), Critical Discourse Analysis. Theory and Interdisciplinarity. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 130-159
89 Laclau, Ernesto & Chantal Mouffe (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso; Torfing,
Jacob (1999) ‘Discourse Theory: Achievements, Arguments, and Challenges’, in D. Howarth and J. Torfing (eds.), Discourse theory in European politics: identity, policy and governance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 7
90 Torfing’s critique is based on a post-structuralist understanding of discourse as inspired by Laclau and
Mouffe. Because of limited space, we cannot delve into the differences between these two traditions, nor can we discuss the potentialities that post-structuralist work may have vis-à-vis IPE. We can however note that in terms of actual analysis, the difference between the two traditions is small. Therefore many of the concepts and strategies developed by Laclau and Mouffe are useful within a CDA framework.
91 Philips, Louis & Marianne W. Jørgensen (2002), p. 89 92 Ibid, p. 90
our actors (the ERT and LCEC as well as the Commission) and citizenship discourses relate to the European integration process as manifested in the Lisbon Agenda.
The Hegemony of Production and the Production of Hegemony: The KBE as a new economic imaginary
Neo-Gramscian IPE perspectives have in the past concentrated on what Ngai-Ling Sum calls the “hegemony of production” (or “the relative domination of a production order or accumulation regime, i.e. Fordism”) at the expense of the “production of hegemony” (or, “the processes and mechanisms in and through which ‘political, intellectual, and moral leadership’ is secured in and across the differentiated and dispersed organizations and institutions of civil society and articulated with the apparently autonomous production order)”.93 By instead taking
the production of hegemony as our point of departure, it is argued here that we are able to address many of the criticisms leveled against both neo-Gramscian IPE and CDA.
It should at this point be noted that the concept of hegemony as employed in this study, inspired by Gramsci, differs significantly from its usage by neorealists, “in which a hegemonic state controls and dominates other states and the international order thanks to its superior amount of economic and military capabilities”.94 Instead Gramsci considered both the consensual and
coercive aspects of hegemony.95 As Robert Cox explains, hegemony prevails “to the extent that
the consensual aspect of power is in the forefront […]. Coercion is always latent but is only applied in marginal, deviant cases”.96 Our purpose here must then be to explain and understand
how an order becomes hegemonic at the level of the European Union.
The EU as a ‘Novel Polity’
Firstly, again borrowing from Gramsci, this study considers the EU as an ‘integral state’, which is more than just the political society, or the public “apparatus of government”, but also consists of the private element of civil society.97 While the EU should not be conceived as a state
93 Sum, Ngai-Ling (2004), p. 2 94 Bieler, Andreas (2000), p. 14
95 Bieling, Hans Jürgen and Jochen Steinhilber (2000), Hegemoniale Projekte im Prozeß der europäischen
Integration”, in H.J. Bieling and J. Steinhilber (eds.), Die Konfiguration Europas. Dimensionen einer kritischen Integrationstheorie. Münster: Westfälisches Dampboot. p. 102
96 Cox, Robert (1993), p.52
97 Gramsci, Antonio (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks (trans. Q. Hoare and G. Nowell Smith).
in the national sense, it can be defined, as James Caporaso makes clear, as an “ongoing structure of political authority and governance”.98 The EU can therefore be thought of as a socially
constructed capitalist economic and political space99 under which various economic, political, and
intellectual forces present rival economic imaginaries for the socio-economic governance of the EU.100 Economic imaginaries can be conceived of as rival projects
that seek to (re)define specific subsets of economic activities as subjects, sites, and stakes of competition and/or as objects of regulation and to articulate strategies, projects and visions oriented to these imagined economies.101
The economic imaginary of the knowledge-based economy evoked in the Lisbon Agenda at the level of the EU polity is supported by various forces that seek to mobilize elite and/or popular support behind this imaginary against rival, competing imaginaries. Our task is then to analyse within the ‘state-society’, or political-civil society relations of the European Union, the social and political forces supportive of the Lisbon Agenda and their strategies employed vis-à-vis this new economic imaginary.
The Social Force of Capital and the New Economic Imaginary
By using the “production of hegemony” as our point of departure, we attempt to address the charge of class reductionism that is often leveled against neo-Gramscian IPE theorists. The accusation often emanates from an insistence that the social relations of production, and the power that derives from them, gives historical content to any nation-state. The EU as a capitalist economic space, according to neo-Gramscian IPE theorists, thus creates the structural potential for the classic structural division of capitalism based on a ‘logic of exploitation’: the capital-labour division where private ownership of the means of production divides society into a
minority group of capitalists which own and control the means of production, and a working class that is forced to sell its labour as a commodity on the open market.102
98 Caporaso, James (1996) ‘The European Union and Forms of State: Westphalian, Regulatory or
Post-modern?’, Journal of Common Market Studies. 34 (1), p. 33; cited in van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan (2002), p. 46
99 Rosamond, Ben (2002) ‘Imagining the European Economy: ‘Competiveness’ and the Social Construction
of ‘Europe’ as an Economic Space’, New Political Economy. 7(2)
100 Jessop, Bob (2004) 101 Ibid (2004), p. 163
102 van Apeldoorn, Bastian (2002), p. 22; Holman, Otto & van der Pijl, Kees (2003) ‘Structure and Process
in Transnational European Business’, in A. Cafruny & M. Ryner (eds.), A Ruined Fortress? Neoliberal Hegemony and Transformation in Europe. Lanham MD, Rowman and Littlefield, p.72
Yet beyond this, as Marieke de Goede103 explains, the “processes of identification are not
exhaustively determined by material circumstances, but have to be articulated through contingent and political discourses”.104 For our purposes then, we must adopt a heuristic class model, and
follow E.P. Thompson in suggesting that class “happens when some men (sic), as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs”.105
Secondly, following Bastiaan van Apeldoorn106, I argue that although ‘the social’ is not
exhausted in an examination of the social relations of production, they are “still primary in the production and distribution of wealth and thus central to both the constitution of forms of social power and the question of socio-economic content”. We must therefore be careful not to reduce all facets of identity to class identity, and must instead locate class identity within the rubric of social forces, which include various identities (ethnic, nationalist, gender), and be sensitive to how these identities, like class, “derive from a common material basis linked to relations of exploitation”.107
Thus in order to achieve a broader conception of the integral state, the ERT and LCEC are conceived as significant private (civil society) actors that conform to our class model as planning forums for the European capitalist class. This categorization is true to the extent that members of these forums “own and/or control substantial income-generating assets at the expense of others – through expropriation, unpaid (or surplus) labor, or unfair competition” and/or form part of a managerial cadre of the capitalist class “in imposing the discipline of capital on workers and on society at large”.108 Both have privileged access to key European elites, especially national
and European-level politicians and members of transnational economic forums, and as well, both share a privileged access to some of Europe’s largest media outlets, including the European edition of the Wall Street Journal.
With this in mind it is important not to think of the LCEC as traditional lobbies that seek to advance single or limited-issue agendas, and should instead, as Andreas Bieler109 argues, be
thought of as platforms for organic intellectuals seeking to “formulate a coherent hegemonic project for transnational European capital”. The ERT and LCEC are hesitant themselves to the
103 de Goede, Marieke (2003), pp. 89-90 104 de Goede, Marieke (2003), p. 90
105 Thompson, E.P. (1980) The Making of the English Working Class. London: Penguin, pp. 8-9; cited in
van Apeldoorn, Bastian (2002), p. 21
106 van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan (2001), p. 88 107 Morton, Adam David (2003), p. 159
108 Holman, Otto & van der Pijl, Kees (2003), p. 73 109 Bieler, Andreas (2003), p. 12
label of ‘lobby group’, and instead prefer to think of themselves as citizens groups with broad agendas.110 Nevertheless for the sake of practicality and simplicity, this study will refer to them
cautiously as EU business lobbies. As well, since our heuristic class model recognises the limits to a simple labour-capital dichotomy, the ERT and LCEC, with their ‘global’ outlooks and interests, are best situated within what Bastiaan van Apeldoorn has called the ‘transnational fraction’ of European capital or as part of a transnational business elite. They maintain a global outlook, seeking to increase Europe’s competitiveness in the world market, particularly by comparing the European market with that of the United States. Although these business groups are not the only important actors emanating from the civil society of the EU, they are amongst the most prominent.111
The EU Political Society: The Commission
The Commission for its part is central to our analysis of the EU polity as the EU institution that represents most clearly the idea of a European political society, with some going as far as to call it Europe’s government-in-waiting.112 The Commission, as an institution of
political society serves an integral role in “stabilizing and perpetuating a particular order”.113
Institutions in this case “reflect power relations”, and are amalgams of ideas and material capabilities, but at the same time take on a life of their own and reflect back on and have the ability to influence material capabilities and ideas.114 Therefore, although the European capitalist
class has been supportive of the Lisbon Agenda as the EU’s new economic imaginary, this does not mean that it holds the same vision for the attainment of the Lisbon Agenda goals as the Commission. The institutionalization of particular amalgams of material capabilities and ideas relates closely to the Gramscian notion of hegemony, yet the ways in which a hegemonic project is manifested in any historical structure requires further explanation.
110 van Apeldoorn (2000) ‘Transnational Class Agency and European Governance: The Case of the
European Roundtable of Industrialists’, New Political Economy. 5(2)
111 van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan (Forthcoming 2005)
112 Cini, Michelle (2002) ‘The European Commission’, in A. Warleigh (ed.), Understanding European
Union Institutions. New York: Routledge, p.42
113 Cox, Robert W. (1986), p.219 114 Ibid (1986), p.219
Citizenship Discourses and ‘Mass Politics’ and the Historical Bloc: From Accumulation Strategy to Economic Imaginary
Finally, in order to address the charge that neo-Gramscianism neglects ideas and that CDA is not clear on the relationship of discursive to non-discursive we introduce the Gramscian concept of the historical bloc. In order for a new economic imaginary to be effective, it must go beyond “narrowly economic matters”115 (or what Gramsci called the ‘economic-corporate level’),
to the ethico-political moment of “mass politics in broader civil society”.116 This is the point at
which our use of discourses on citizenship as a our analytical focused becomes justified in the overarching theoretical framework: as Magnus Ryner and Alan Cafruny explain, the idea of citizenship represents Gramsci’s ethico-political moment “par excellence”.117
In the case of the European Union, the shift from the economic-corporate to ethico-political dimension (and thus to hegemony) cannot be based merely on economic factors alone, and requires “the introduction of new, compatible identities to achieve coherence within the emerging European social body”.118 This coherence can only be achieved through a political
discourse that presents itself as ‘mass politics’: the most effective way to do this is to evoke the idea of putting forth a political project that appeals directly to ‘the people’; where the idea of a ‘people’s Europe’ is upheld.119 As a result, citizenship discourses can give us a clear indication of
the ethico-political strategies (involved in the ‘production of hegemony’) employed by various social forces.
Social forces that are successful in expressing a ‘coherent’ hegemonic fit between the ideological and material foundations of their new economic imaginary, and between the mass politics of civil society and the political society of the EU, have their hegemonic project
materialize into an ‘historical bloc’. At a basic level, a historical bloc “is an alliance of classes or fractions of classes, which attempts to establish a particular form of state and/or world order preferable to them”.120 However, a historical bloc is more than just an alliance of social forces,
and rather represents “the solid structure of political society and civil society […] in which precisely material forces are the content and ideologies are the form”.121
Thus the concept of a historical bloc allows us to theorize the economy not as a separate,
115 Jessop, Bob (2004), p. 166 116 Hay, Colin (2003), p. 147
117 Ryner, Magnus & Alan Cafruny (2003), p. 12 118 Smith, Giles-Scott (2003), pp. 261-2
119 Holman, Otto (2004), pp. 714, 725 120 Bieler, Andreas (2000), p. 14 121 Gramsci, Antonio (1971), p. 377
strictly non-discursive element operating by its own logic, but rather as a distinctive element within which discursive constructions attempt to lend legitimacy to certain economic forms vis-à-vis a coherent, broad-based ideology within civil and political society.122 Thus in order to be
effective (and legitimate), and to form a hegemonic historical bloc, a new economic imaginary “must, together with associated state projects and hegemonic visions, be capable of translation into a specific set of material social, and spatio-temporal fixes that jointly underpin a relative
structured coherence to support continued accumulation”.123
To sum up our purpose then, we are seeking to understand how certain private social groups employ new economic imaginaries that go beyond a narrow economic accumulation strategy to the ethico-political level of mass politics (through an appeal to citizenship). We must probe as to how this strategy interacts with the political society of the EU (in this case the
Commission). We are thus involving ourselves in the analysis of citizenship discourses in order to determine the relationship between a social force from civil society, and the political society of the EU in the strategic mobilization of a new economic imaginary based on a knowledge-based economy for the European Union. The new economic imaginary of the knowledge-based
economy invoked by the ERT and LCEC need not be the same as that of the Commission, yet the examination of the discourses of both of them will help us to determine whether the new
economic imaginary of Europe’s transnational business elite has structural coherence as a historical bloc in the socio-economic governance of the EU.
5) Methods and Methodology
With the theoretical aspects of the study now clear, we must ground our epistemology and ontology in a methodological framework, and in the process, develop a methodology that adequately addresses our theoretical aims.124 It should first be noted that this study follows the
idea that no attempt should be made to establish (or to draw upon) an “all-embracing” methodological framework for the study of discourse. Instead, in keeping with our critical, reflexive, and historicist approach, the way we go about study the empirical material should be “left up to the individual researcher’s own creativity and discretion”.125
As far as empirical materials are concerned, this study will analyse all of the documents
122 Howarth, David (1995) ‘Discourse Theory’, in D. Marsh and Gerry Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods
in Political Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave , p. 130
123 Jessop, Bob (2004), p. 166; my emphasis 124 Gill, Stephen (1993a), p.44
125 Hansen, Peo (2000) Europeans Only? Essays on identity politics and the European Union. Umeå: Umeå
(communications, press releases, white papers, green papers, letters, speeches, etc.) produced by the ERT, LCEC, and Commission concerning the Lisbon Agenda that include some form of citizenship discourse. The citizenship discourse need not directly refer to the ‘citizen’ as such, but might involve discourses that are “notable for being implicated in establishing and maintaining identities and relations of citizenship as well as people’s views of what these are and might be”.126
The temporal frame for the analysis of these materials begins in early 2000 with the introduction of the Lisbon Agenda at the Lisbon European Council Meeting, until mid-2005, with special emphasis on the discourses on citizenship and the Lisbon Agenda since the nomination process began for the Barroso Commission in 2004.
Methodology and ‘Empiricism of the Surface’
Aside from these practical matters, following William Walters,127 I argue that in “exploring
the changing ways in which European integration has been ‘said’ […] can tell us much about the ‘how’ of European governance”. In particular Walters, in following Nikolas Rose,128 suggests
that we involve ourselves in an ‘empiricism of the surface’, not in the sense of measurement and calculation, but which attempts to identify “what is said, how it is said, and what allows it to be said and to have an effectivity”. In order to achieve these goals, I propose two modest, yet effective discourse-analytical strategies, comparison and multivocality, that will address the subject matter.
Multivocality
The analytical strategy of multivocality delineates between what are seen as different voices or discursive logics in a text.129 This follows the assumption made by Norman Fairclough
that a “rough idea” of these different voices and discursive logics in a text can be established before beginning a discourse analysis.130 After this has been established, Philips and Jørgensen
explain,131 the researcher must ask: “What characterizes the different voices of the text? When
126 Fairclough, Norman, Pardoe, Simon, & Bronislaw Szerszynski (2004) ‘Critical Discourse Analysis and
Citizenship’, available at: http://www.kkhec.ac.ir/Linguistics%20articles%20index/fairclough4.htm
127 Walters, William (2004), p. 157
128 Rose, Nikolas (1999) Powers of Freedom: reforming political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, p.
57; cited in Walters, William (2004), p. 157
129 Philips, Louis & Marianne Jørgensen (2002), p. 151 130 Fairclough, Norman (2003), p. 47
